British Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has unveiled the spring budget to the British Houses of Parliament.
The past year has seen massive data breaches, cyber attacks and security failures to critical infrastructure in Britain, and as a result it was expected that a few cents, or at least a few words, would be sent towards cyber security.
There were some promising plans for entrepreneurs and investment, but it appears that the government is falling short in its offer for SMEs and cyber security, at a time when many are feeling the pressure.
Boost for SMEs
Good news for the little guys: the VAT registration threshold for small businesses has been increased from £85,000 to £90,000, giving small businesses some leeway to grow at a time when many organizations are reluctant to invest money in themselves.
A further £200 million will also be channeled into the Recovery Loan Scheme, which will soon be converted into the ‘Growth Guarantee Scheme’, which will “help 11,000 SMEs access the finance they need.”
The Chancellor says Britain is “on course to become the world’s next Silicon Valley” and hopes changes to pension funds and extra powers for the Pension Regulator and Financial Conduct Authority will entice tech entrepreneurs to “start here and here to stay” by unlocking the investment potential of pension funds for small businesses and startups in Britain.
Plans for aging IT systems are mentioned, but only for productivity reasons
Defense spending is now at NATO’s target of 2% of GDP, and will rise to 2.5% “as soon as economic conditions allow”, but no mention was made of investments in cyber security.
The Joint Committee on National Security Strategy (JCNSS) warned late last year that ransomware “undoubtedly poses a major threat to UK national security”, but this warning, along with many others, has apparently fallen on deaf ears.
The aging IT systems in the NHS were given the attention they deserved in the Budget announcement, but no mention was made of the security risks posed by the use of such systems. The driving force behind upgrading archaic systems, at least according to the Chancellor, is to increase productivity and reduce the 13 million hours lost per year to outdated IT systems.
The WannaCry attack, which relied heavily on outdated IT systems to spread, crippled the NHS along with a number of other institutions on a global scale in 2017. The rising number of ransomware attacks and the inherent vulnerabilities of operating outside the boundaries of IT systems should be the main reason for investing in such a critical organization as the NHS.
Despite the Chancellor repeatedly mentioning that some aspects of the UK economy are outpacing those of the US and the G7, there are areas outside the economy where Britain is falling dangerously behind.
Al Lakhani, CEO of IDEE, said: “We all understand that attacks no longer need to cross physical borders to cause destruction. But legislation governing the use of cybersecurity solutions is weak – well behind what you see in the US and EU – and investment in cyber is generally lackluster, as today’s Budget once again proves.
“This point is even more relevant given the huge investments announced for the digital transformation of the NHS and the public sector generally, which will only increase the threat hackers face.
“Spending money on the military and restricting immigration clearly works better with voters. But if the government continues to do this at the expense of protecting the country – its people, its businesses and its public services – from the enormous, evolving threat of cyber-attacks, it is sleepwalking into a digital war zone where defeat is guaranteed. ”